The present invention relates to a honeycomb storage system comprising at least one shelf, which has a plurality of storage units arranged side-by-side and overtop of each other for receiving cartridges, which are preferably used for storing long goods. The storage units are accessibly from an operating side of the shelf, where a shelf operating device is provided. The storage units are here embodied such that the cartridges can be removed from the storage units and inserted therein horizontally in the longitudinal direction.
Honeycomb storage systems of this type serve for storing generally elongated work pieces, frequently called long goods, such as profiles, rods, and rails, frequently measuring several meters and, due to the fact that they have insufficient inherent stability and for protecting their surfaces, they are frequently inserted into the honeycomb storage system provided inside cartridges. The alignment of the storage units in a honeycomb storage system allows the integration of a plurality of storage units in a shelf and to allow access thereto because the faces of the work pieces and thus also those of the cartridges in which the work pieces are housed are normally small in reference to their longitudinal extension. Simultaneously the cartridges can be easily pulled from longitudinally out of the shelf and inserted therein. The number of storage units accessible from one side of the shelf is therefore optimized by this arrangement.
Long goods warehoused in such a honeycomb storage system are generally stored in bundles of identical work pieces using cartridges, however they are not removed one cartridge at a time but usually, depending on the order, it must be commissioned from different cartridges storing (long goods). Such an order can originate here for example from a customer of a steel trader, warehousing the goods in a honeycomb storage unit, or also from the production department of a producing company, storing semi-finished goods in an in-house honeycomb storing unit. Sometimes for a specific product, for example a window, work pieces must be obtained from typically ten different cartridges housing long goods, for example ten different profiles, and assembled and/or commissioned for an order.
For this purpose a honeycomb storage system of the present type has at a front of at least one shelf, opposite an operating side, a commissioning device by which individual commissions are assembled and prepared for removal. This commissioning device is allocated to a plurality of storage units in the shelf near the ground, with these storage units being embodied as marshaling storage units. This means that any cartridges located therein can also be removed at the front of the shelf. Typically there are only few marshaling storage units in a conventional honeycomb storage system and the commissioning process must be performed manually.
In order to assemble a commission, the work pieces to be obtained from the honeycomb storage system are requested by a superonlinate warehouse management system or an operator, the commissioner, such that the shelf operating device successively retrieves the cartridges housing the requested work pieces out of their storage units and places them into the marshaling storage unit, or if several such units are available, into the marshaling storage units. From there they can then be pulled at the front of the shelf into the commissioning device. There the required number of work pieces located therein is removed and commissioned in another cartridge or on the warehouse floor.
A conventional commissioning device commonly comprises several commissioning sites, on which cartridges or other transportation units are arranged for the work pieces, particularly long goods. Supported by mobile lifts and cranes here operators pull the cartridges rendered available in the marshaling storage units out of the shelf and remove the number of work pieces required for a commission in order to place them onto the respective commissioning site. Thereafter the operators put the cartridge with the work pieces not required back onto the marshaling storage unit, from where they are returned by the shelf operating device to the actual storage unit.
In particular the processing step of removing required work pieces from the cartridge until placing them onto the respective commissioning site is very time-consuming in the procedures of prior art, with here sometimes traveling over long distances being required when several commissioning sites are operated side-by-side.